Armed Escort: Redux
by mirroredsakura
Summary: Mercverse AU. Zack/Aeris. Zack finds the girl the Turks have been hunting for, and makes the happy mistake of following her when she runs. The situation gets... heated.


**Mercverse** was the world-bunny AU of **icedark_elf** on LJ many years ago, which included, among other things, Zack as a human with demon blood, Cloud as an immortal, Sephiroth as a mage adept, and Vincent and Chaos as demon twins. As mercenaries. Mercverse.

This is a complete rewrite of the original I wrote over 9 years ago. I was never happy with the first-person POV, nor how brief it was. These things have been changed a great deal - more sexy times, more banter - but I still tried to keep things a little vague to remain post-worthy on as well.

 **xxxx**

There is not much out there hotter than a beautiful girl in slinky black leathers.

Zack should know. He'd spent nights enough catching the eye of pretty girls in bars, baring teeth just a little too sharp around the edges in a sexy smile of his own.

And then when you're tangled together on the floor and she's got a leg rubbed up between yours and all that slim, svelte frame is pressed up so hard against you, you can feel her every breath and the pounding of her heart right up against yours.

Yeah. That's sexy.

The gun, though. That wasn't so sexy.

The gun barrel pressed as hard as the rest of her against his jaw - angled up to blow a hole straight through the soft part of his palate and on through the back of his head if her finger even so much as twitched on that trigger - was, in fact, a definite downside to the festivities.

Impending death sometimes added a little spice to the the situation, but those were usually dire-straits-say-your-last-words types of scenarios as you you faced off against an army... or at least a really mean-looking dragon. And while Zack may be carrying around just enough demon inside all that pretty human skin to ensure his competence in a more-than-human firefight, he wasn't exactly kosher with testing just how far demon regeneration could take you in the area of missing brain matter.

So while he wasn't exactly _scared_ per se about having a gun pointed at vitally important parts of his person, he wasn't really _not nervous_ about it either.

Only thing was, she wasn't pulling that trigger. She had those soft lips pressed up hard against his, and her tongue sliding in a rough tangle inside his mouth that usually had him boneless and purring - but that was under other, more experienced hands not currently employed in threatening injury to his person. And all that wasn't even mentioning what she was doing with her legs - squeezing his thigh in sweet pulses between hers, rocking her hips and grinding in against him, incidentally leading to a rather nice amount of friction on some very appreciative areas.

When he'd walked into the bar earlier, this was not exactly what he'd been expecting.

A night alone once in a while was nice, so long as he stayed out of trouble - and then she'd caught his eye, sitting quietly in a corner with her slim fingers wrapped around a sweating glass. She'd had a few curls escaping the long russet braid that just begged for his fingers to brush them back, and massive bangs that could probably give Seph a run for his money.

And then he'd recognized her - that Aeris girl. Word on the street everywhere was that the Turks were after this one, wanted her _badly_ , and no one was quite sure if it was for a bounty or if they were looking to swell their numbers.

He hadn't been able to help staring. Besides, the outfit had been killer.

He'd gone over to see if she could do with a different drink if she wasn't liking the one she already had.

When she looked up at him, she'd looked ready to bolt. She hadn't even said a word, just took all of him in - rumpled suit with a wide-open shirt collar he'd worn out on an undercover op, and hair no real corporate zombie could ever sport - and just stood up all at once, abandoning her drink, and walking purposefully towards the restrooms.

Okay, so Zack hadn't really been used to something like that happening. Maybe it was on him, following her so that he could get a word in, try and explain himself maybe. Job description aside, he really wasn't a bad guy and knew when to take _no_ for an answer. She just had to say it.

So maybe it was also on him that, when she glanced back over her shoulder and pinned him with those incredible green eyes (and he knew incredible green eyes, have you _seen_ Sephiroth?) before pushing through into the ladies room, he took it as an invitation.

-All right, so he'd cocked it up. But it was a simple case of mixed signals. Nobody ever said that deserved _dying_ over.

When he'd pushed open the door a crack with a wary, "Hey listen, maybe we got off on the wrong foot here-" a hand had snaked out and jerked him in.

What followed had been a fiercely silent and exceptionally short fight that began with her hitting him in the back of his head with her handbag, about three seconds wherein he had her in a partial headlock, and a hefty barrel roll of tangled limbs before he was positively poleaxed by the wild, panicked scent of Lifestream smashing right through his brain.

That, he'd thought sourly, his inner demon coiling high as a kite on the shot of extra-strength _green_ still roiling around in his brain, was _cheating_.

At least she'd looked surprised to see him down for the count and blinking owlishly up at her. It'd helped his ego get over the fact that she'd proceeded to _sit_ on him, and then poke him curiously as if he were the star performer in a chocobo petting zoo - even if she did have a gun to his head the entire time.

"You know I wasn't gonna hurt you," was all he managed to say when he finally got his mouth working again.

She cocked her head and just looked at him, a slight puzzled frown playing along her lips. A very slight hesitance, right at the back of her eyes almost had him convinced that maybe she'd realized this was all some big mistake and that she'd let him go… and then she'd leaned right over his face, peering down close into his eyes with their unnatural glow.

He could smell her. And maybe that'd also been a mistake because he hadn't expected how hot and how hungry just that would make his inner demon... didn't think he'd ever known anyone who could make every drop of blood in his body leap for her touch.

 _Lifestream._

This girl did.

The demon inside wanted to eat her, hungered to drink down that sweet smell, that delicate undertone of _power_ \- but it was only a small, sluggish part of him. The human side transmuted all of that straight to lust - do not pass go, do not collect $200. He wanted to lay her flat against the tile, to snatch all that plush leather in his big hands and tear it apart, to kiss, and lick, and suck, and _fuck_...

He didn't do any of it. But he also hadn't been able to choke down the strangled moan of want, or help the way his mouth opened to her, inviting, or the way he'd arched his neck up as high as he could, closing that last little inch to kiss her, hard.

The weirder part had been that she'd let him.

Maybe it'd been the sparks (literally) that sizzled with minute pops between them the minute his lips touched hers. Maybe it was the deep _thrum_ of contentment that rose up from his throat at the touch of her, that sound that no real human properly makes. Maybe she just liked him.

He didn't care. She was kissing him back. She was magical. Intoxicating. She called the blue to his eyes until they drowned in their own light and he wanted her more than… more than anything.

-And if he weren't a professional and hadn't had years of leashing his demons in, maybe he'd have been a slave to it and lost himself in her, only her. But he wasn't. He was Zack Fair, and he pulled away sharply, the back of his head smacking against the smutty tiles.

Pain helped.

She swayed dazedly when he jerked away. Her eyes hadn't started glowing, but they had gone hazy, deep and drowning, so that even the light of his eyes cast no reflection in those seas of green. What was she?

And then… she'd smiled at him. A shy, breathless little smile with only a hint of a blush. And while she hadn't trusted him enough to move the gun away from his head, she did reach out and grab hold of his hand, dragging it up to the silver ring at the neck of her bodysuit. The silver line of the zipper ran down between her breasts, down to her navel, and this time he knew he wasn't mixing signals. This was an invitation.

She didn't have to ask twice.

He hooked that bit of metal with his middle finger and drew it down, the material unzipping like silk. He spread his fingers wide as he did it, so that he could feel the swells of her breasts as he passed down between them.

She made a pleased sound as she leaned in to kiss him again - and that was a good sign, a good, not crazy, no brain-splattering sign that he wasn't pushing her out past her comfort zone.

This time it was her kiss, her tongue in his mouth that he suckled gently, her fingers tangling in the fine hairs at his nape - and she wasn't wolf, she wasn't demon, she didn't devour him from the inside out, instead she _gave_. It was like drinking her down in a wellspring of crystal, and accustomed as his demon was to the hot heat of his human prison, it welcomed the cool taste of her power.

Zack realized his head didn't hurt anymore.

She pulled away for a moment to study him. Her lips were red and swollen, but her eyes were clear again, and however his face looked, she seemed to like it, dipping back down to kiss him again.

And then... and then there was _heat_ \- hot, baking, earth-shattering, and with it desire shot back up to the fore. Her hand was guiding his to the edges of her suit, encouraging him as he pulled them wider apart, framing large pillowy breasts with nipples hardening in the cold air.

He ran the balls of his thumbs against them, so that a soft hiss escaped her lips; he cupped her breasts in his hands to stroke the soft, silken weight of them; he rocked his hips up so that their thighs trapped against each other kept up that steady, pulsing friction.

And all the while she was moving against him, squalling softly as he touched her, tasting like a piece of heaven. Her skin didn't actually glow but she _shone_ , untouched by their cramped, filthy surroundings.

He pulled her free arm out of her sleeve for her, hoping this would at least encourage her to at least take the dangerous weapon away from his head - but no, she merely passed it to her other hand, smiling cheekily as he complied with an inner sigh, and freed her from her other sleeve. He jerked it down, peeling it off her back and she wriggled her hips helpfully when he slid the heavy material down her waist and rounded hips, arched upwards shifting her weight so he could drag it down her legs, down past her knees, and then she was on her feet as he helped tug them off her ankles, stepping daintily out of it, finally setting bare feet on the tile.

He could have swept her legs out from under her right then, or knifed her hamstring with the butterfly at his hip, or done a dozen other things but for two very important facts. The first: if he'd thought she was sexy when she was clothed, it was nothing compared to how she looked standing over him, gloriously and unashamedly naked, and the second: he saw the safety was on, had in fact been on the entire time and she'd never once put him in any danger at all.

Zack smiled, and he knew it was admiring. This Aeris girl had some serious brass ones.

He reached up for her, sitting up to slide his hands up the soft skin of her calves, the backs of her knees, her thighs. When she didn't object, he laid kisses along the line of her thigh, scraping his teeth against the soft flesh of her inner thigh, and then sliding his tongue between her folds and oh _glory_ she was so wet, so _warm_.

Zack he looked up the line of her body with mako-blue eyes glowing behind the dark fringe of his lashes and parted her folds with large, callused fingertips, sliding the flat of his tongue against that perfect little point of pleasure, lapping at it with long, hard strokes. Her entire body shuddered as she mewled a quiet, heartfelt, and utterly unintelligible " _hmmnnnh…_ "

There was heat staining her cheeks but her eyes were heavy-lidded and fluttering and never left his as she threaded her fingers through his hair, cupping the back of his head, urging him closer, harder.

He'd take that as a compliment.

He obliged by plunging two fingers inside her; the little squeal she made and the corresponding gush of wetness set him salivating, a whet for his demon's appetites. He pointed his tongue (longer and more prehensile than the average human, and no one had ever taught him to find it lacking) and flicked it like a metronome, over and over as he thrust his fingers in, deeper, purring as the scent of her enveloped him.

His fingers sped up inside her, pumping in that hot, slick, tightness as he alternated between flicking the tip of his tongue against her at her clit with the same breathless speed, or sucking on it, flicking with sharp taps of his tongue between his lips which drew out sharp, almost guttural " _nnnmh!_ " sounds from Aeris as she swayed and shuddered and bucked above him, fighting to keep her feet.

Maybe because it'd been awhile - with a girl, anyway - but more because he knew it was better, so much _better_ , to build up to it, it took time to work the pads of his fingers inside her, to start curving and searching for that… one… spot…

She shrieked - a quick, startled burst of sound - when he found it, with a trilling exhale that measured the length of her full-body shudder. Her knees quaked, buckled, and for a few moments before she braced herself against the door, Zack was holding up the full weight of her body with his other hand, as easily as if she weighed nothing at all.

It wasn't for his pretty face alone that he'd been grandfathered into Cloud's pack.

He bared his teeth in a sharp grin against her skin as he lapped up her taste, driving her on, just a little further, not yet, not _yet_ … It helped that she was so _responsive_ , letting him learn in seconds what could take hours if not weeks with other, shyer lovers.

When she came, crashing against the door and squalling, he was waiting for it, cradling the small of her back with one hand. That hard, hot grin was plastered on his face as she dripped down his fingers, his hand, spattering the tiles as he filled her to the last, and he gloried in the way she _squeezed_. Even as she shuddered, he lapped at her, tapping his tongue sharply so that she cried out in small whimpers, bright sparks of pleasure in the staticky wash of afterglow.

His eyes were lazy when she could finally open hers again and focus on him, lazy but eager as he finally withdrew his hand and lapped at it with long, sure strokes, sucking at his fingertips so he could be certain of every last drop.

Her hand, still quivering almost imperceptibly like the rest of her, reached out to his hair, running her fingers through the wild spikes, and she managed a small smile. She was still holding the gun, but it was hanging limply from her hand now, aimed at the floor.

"Damn, babe," he heard himself saying, "I cannot fucking _blame_ the Turks for wanting you so bad."

Wait. She knew about that. Right?

Her eyes widened. "You mean… you're not one of them?"

Whoa. That was a mindfuck in and of itself - body like that, those moves, those sounds… he realized she'd never actually said a word (well, not real ones anyway), and all this time he'd figured her for having that rough throaty purr you often heard around here in the lower streets of Midgar.

But no, hers was a light singsong of sound - as if she'd never breathed the smoky filth of the air around here. Like expecting a cat and getting a songbird.

And her words! He laughed, and it was a good laugh, straight from the belly. That was one mystery solved. He should've guessed the damn suit would lead him to trouble.

"First time I've been mistaken for one," he told her, grinning up at her through his lashes, "Why, you got one for me to kill?"

Okay, so that wasn't exactly the most romantic card he had in his deck. But for her, he might even do it for free.

-Or, you know, pretend to. His pack and the Turks had an… understanding of sorts.

The pink was starting to come back to her face again, the flush of real embarrassment, even though her eyes remained startled and confused, "But… you were following me. I could feel you watching me… outside…"

...She was adorable. He was in love. Was marriage on the table?

"You don't come down here very often, do you?" he asked ruefully, scrubbing a hand through the mess of his hair, "Talk to people? Look in a mirror, say, ever?"

Aaaaaand now she really was blushing, hard, to the point where Zack shrugged out of his wrinkled suit jacket and handed it up to her. It engulfed her with its broad shoulders when she draped it over herself, covering her nakedness.

He thought it'd never looked better.

"Who are you?"

He raised his eyebrows, and though his smile didn't dim, it quirked upwards in one corner. He was fairly certain she wasn't going to shoot him in the head now, enough to push it a little.

"Between the two of us, doll, who owes whom an explanation first?"

Especially since she still smelled _so fucking good_... and his pants were still so goddamned tight.

She blinked. He cocked his eyes expressively at the gun still in her hand. She had the grace to look sheepish.

"I wasn't going to hurt you."

"Okay, I think you and I have a pretty less-than-equal recollection about a handbag to the face."

"Back of the head!"

"Ahah! So you see, you did go down swinging!"

"Well you're not hurt now, are you?"

"Not after one of your magic sex kisses, I'm not." He looked up at her, frank curiosity in his face but not pushing, not yet. There were plenty of weird powers that congregated in this city, even if hers happened to be one of the weirdest he'd ever seen. "Although if you're telling me you really do jump every Turk in the city like this, I am buying ringside seats and a video camera next time you run into Elena."

She smacked him, the lightest little whap on the side of the head. He caught her hand in his, pressed a kiss to her palm.

Fuck her skin was soft.

She crouched down, still well-hidden beneath his coat (he knew he should've gotten a size smaller) so that their faces were on a level for the first time that night. "The voices told me you were a nice person," she said with a smile like sunlight, "I guess they were right."

Yeah. That was definitely his heart beating faster.

"My name's Zack," he said finally, "I'm in Cloud's pack."

"Cloud? ...You're a mercenary?"

"Mhm. Job description bother you?"

She smiled and tapped him on the nose, "Maybe I just want to hire you."

He opened his mouth to answer - and then she kissed him again, eyes open this time, and glittering with an impish challenge.

Fuck.

And maybe that was the point, because it didn't matter that he hadn't once touched himself, or that they'd already been talking for several minutes... he was right back to full mast the moment she leaned forward, his jacket slipping open as she wound her arms around his neck.

Her fingers on one hand carded through the softer hairs at his nape, the other slid lower, gripping the muscles in his back. He could feel the soft puff of her laughter against his lips when he flexed them, lifting his arms so that he could pick her up and settle her in his lap.

Aeris wrapped her long legs around his waist, locked them behind his back, and then carried her kiss down the lines of his face - silly little eskimo kisses with his nose that put a goofy smile on his face, sweet butterfly kisses down the line of his jaw, soft little nuzzles against his neck…

It didn't come up much in conversation, but Zack was a champion kisser. He could, and did, gladly indulge in extended marathons of foreplay: sliding tongues, fingers, bodies, _skin_. He nuzzled the side of her head, breathing in the clean scent of her hair as his fingertips played over the soft skin of her back, skimmed down her sides to cup the roundness of her ass.

-And then she bit down, hard, into the meat of his neck. Not hard enough to break the skin with her blunt, human teeth, but hard enough to set his pulse instantly to a double-time, pounding thud.

He _jerked_ , like there was a direct line of electricity between his groin and his throat… the instant, thrilling need to fight or _fuck_ \- or both at once if that was what she was into. His hands caged her thin waist, the wide bell of her hips, with a strength he had to remember to hold back.

A hoarse, ragged cry escaped his throat as he struggled, and struggled hard, not to heave her back against the door, fuck her into it until they broke the hinges and smashed through the other side.

She'd pulled away only the tiniest bit so that she could get a good look at him, gauge his reaction, her teeth still bared. As the blue of his eyes welled up again with their materia fire, it stretched into a gleeful, understanding smile. "Demon?"

"Demon," he agreed breathlessly, hands gripping her tight as her hips rocked around his, nearly shuddering with the effort to let her lead.

"How much demon?"

"Enough," and his voice had dropped to a deep, thrumming growl.

"I like it," she told him, and her eyes were warm and honest, "I like you."

Then she fisted her hands in the deep creases of his collared shirt, and simply ripped it open with a clatter of buttons, yanking it out of his waistband with a smile.

Oh _yes_. With a snarl of impatience, he grabbed his shirt himself when the back of it caught in his pants - and ripped it apart.

Aeris squeaked as his hand snaked up to cradle the back of her head and flipped her backward against the floor, all in one smooth, sinuous motion of rolling hips and flexing muscle. He kissed her again, sliding the line of his body against hers, and even with his pants still on, hummed at the feel of grinding hard against the sweet heat of her.

When he reared back to finally, _finally_ , undo his belt, the button and zip of his pants, Aeris kept a hand hard at the back of his neck so that he stopped partway - her smile was wicked, cheeky.

"I just want you to know," she informed him archly, "the buttons I could have fixed."

Zack laughed as he yanked his belt out of the loops, and snicked the very tip of it against her lips in a gentle parody of a spank, "Some casualties are a _pleasure_."

Then he hauled back and snapped the buckle against the metal dispenser next to one of the sinks. With a protesting clunk, a single square packet fell out of slot, right next to Aeris's hand.

She blinked. His eyebrows rose. "That," he admitted with a laugh, "worked better than I thought it would."

Which was just as well. He would die if he had to go hunting down a spare gil or two in his pockets _now_.

She helped with the condom, but not before grasping him in her hand, tugging in sharp, squeezing pulls that had had his breath hissing through his teeth.

"Demon," she reminded him again with a smile when she settled back at last, her cheeks flushed, her eyes still hungry.

"No extras," he promised, and it was so good to be able to talk in shorthand and still understand.

It was also good, he realized as he thrust inside her, sliding deep and then deeper, deeper, into that hot, slippery, sucking tightness, to find a girl who could recognize what you were and be smart about what it meant without treating you like a monster.

Then there was no more thinking as she cried out under him, adjusted her hips under him for a better angle, and gripped his hips in her hands, her fingernails biting into his skin. His thrusts were hard, meaty smacks into her flesh as her legs closed around his waist again, and he hovered over her, smiling hotly at the sight of her face.

Aeris had a face like a doll, but she didn't move like one - when he changed the angle, even minutely, she cried out, arching her spine. She thrashed her head from side to side; she made a muss of her braid, of her bangs; she alternated between clenching her eyes shut and fluttering her lashes uncontrollably when she tried to hold his eye.

And Zack… godsall take him, Zack was Zack and he wanted so hard to tell this girl, this beautiful, wonderful, _funny_ girl he didn't know… that he fucking _loved_ her.

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, goading him faster, and he focused back on eyes that looked like they already knew. She drew him down by the back of his head, kissed him and held on, quickening her pace so that he slammed into her harder, harder. Her tongue played against his as he swallowed her short little cries, those breathless, panting whimpers.

Something was growing, and it wasn't just that familiar fire in his belly as the pleasure started to crest. It was the crackle-hum of power, the sharp ozone scent that precluded magic. Zack's eyes were like a nimbus, he could see their glow even behind half-life eyes casting strange shadows on Aeris's face.

There was a small, very practical, very professional part of him that was concerned about that - that realized he was at the nexus of some building power, and that sooner or later he would learn how it would out.

But the rest of him, and that was a much bigger part, was far more concerned with Aeris who was panting, begging against his lips with frantic eyes, "Almost, almost, soon, yes, oh _please...!_ "

More than he worried, he... trusted.

"I'm right here, baby," he whispered, sliding one hand between them, his fingers curling to fit and then flicking, flicking...

She shrieked his name when she clenched up under him all at once, that tight-growing heaviness of power suddenly exploding in a soundless, blinding flash of light. He jerked up away from her lips to see the grimy bathroom boil away into smoke, and he found that the world stretched out around them in a never-ending field of golden flowers, the afternoon sun at his back.

"What-" Zack's hand which had been bracing his upper body above her, dug into a rich loam beneath the grass, his fingers closing around the unmistakable roughness of stems, leaves, roots.

But her head was thrashing again, crushing the grass and the flowers beneath her with sweet, sharp smells, petals coming away in her hair. She was going to come again - and this time she wasn't going to do it alone. The bright pulsing _knowing_ was back as he went down to his elbows, his hands framing her face, firmly caging her to look at him, keep looking at him while he- while he...

Her fingernails clamped down into his skin again as she seized up and bore down on him - squeezing, milking, nearly hard enough to hurt. He came with a shout and a heartfelt hiss as he jerked inside her, yanking his hands away from her face to fist in the flowers and the dirt so he could be sure he didn't hurt her.

Her teeth closed down on his neck again, gentle but firm, and his breath left him in a gust as he went limp as a cat. He had enough care to collapse to the side so that he sprawled next to her, his entire body shivering with residual pleasure as he slipped out of her.

She pillowed her head on one arm and just looked at him, her nose just a touch away from his. With the lazy, satisfied eyes of a cat he mirrored her, reaching out with his free arm to tangle in the fine, damp hairs at the nape of her neck, to marvel at the contrast between the tan of his skin and the milk of hers.

"Where are we?" he asked, his eyes drinking in the sight of her, sleek and satisfied, her nakedness framed in a field of flowers.

She smiled, shyly, and snuggled closer, brushing her nose against his, "It's my Promised Land," she confided, reaching out to run her fingers up and down the lines and muscles of his chest. "I'm just a flower girl from the slums… but I can do this. I can have this."

 _Promised Land._ Where had he heard that before? ...Sephiroth would probably know. Seph or Cloud, they both had the time and inclination for that kind of scholarly bent.

"This mean we'll have a long hike back?"

She shook her head, burying her face against his chest, and made a happy sound when he wrapped his arms around her in earnest. Her leg slid up to nestle between his. "Give me a little while and I'll let it fade."

"I can give you as long as you want, doll," he replied, and was rewarded by her hum of appreciation.

Take me to your pack?" she murmured sleepily, "I could use… I would like bodyguards like you."

"Of course."

What he didn't say was that regardless of what the rest of his pack had to say to the job offer, there was no more gun, there was a coil of satisfied, sated demon lying in the pit of his stomach, and hell, he already knew in his deepest heart of hearts that he was already hers.

Giving into the soft smell of her hair, the hypnotizing sway of the flowers around them, the soft puffs of wind, he closed his eyes with a smile, soaking in the sunshine.

Yeah. Zack could get used to this.

 **xxxx**

I do have a bunny for a (shorter) Aeris-shaped follow-up, plus an expanded sequel with the rest of the pack so hopefully there will be more soon. Look forward to reasons why nobody came barging into the bathroom, what was Aeris doing in all that leather anyway?, and pff, more examples of how I cannot write straight up casual sex for the life of me.

I am a creature of love and squishy things, it is best just to accept it.


End file.
